Art Manteris looked over the remodeled race and sports book at Las Vegas’ venerable Palace Station casino and tried to picture gaming markets outside Nevada replicating the investment.
Station Casinos, through its parent Red Rock Resorts, spent a portion of its $192 million renovation of the historic 42-year-old property on the sports book.
The facility was expanded to more than 8,000 square feet, adding several seating choices for 200 people, new betting terminals, 36 high-definition televisions, and a new raised bar area and VIP lounge. The book has betting counters with new stone tops and millwork, and the finishes include antique bronze and dark walnut.
Art Manteris, left, welcome guests to the opening of the renovated Palace Station sports book.
“It’s hard for me to imagine seeing things like this in other markets for a long time,” said Manteris, Station Casinos’ vice president of race and sports and long considered one of the deans of Nevada’s sports gambling community.
“Las Vegas is still the gold standard of casino offerings, and I’m sure regulators and legislators around the country are starting to take a closer look at the Nevada model,” Manteris said. “Any state looking to get into sports gaming would be making a foolish mistake not to look at Nevada and how we do it here.”
Manteris readily admits he wasn’t initially supportive of efforts to legalize sports betting beyond Nevada and the small-stakes operations in three other states that were authorized by the 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act.
But when the U.S. Supreme Court declared PASPA unconstitutional in May, Manteris knew Nevada wouldn’t be alone for long. Delaware, New Jersey and Mississippi were the first to legalize; West Virginia sports betting is expected to launch Friday, and sports books could open in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island later in the fall.
While the “cat’s out of the bag,” Manteris said, it will be a challenge for other markets to replicate Nevada. However, the Palace Station sports book renovation was done, in some ways, to protect the company’s Nevada business.
The property, located on the west side of Interstate 15 from the Las Vegas Strip, has long been associated with the Las Vegas locals’ market. But changes in the resort – a new pool area, remodeled and expanded casino, and new restaurants – were also done to attract the tourism market as well.
Manteris has been part of the Las Vegas bookmaking scene for more than four decades. A native of Pittsburgh, he became one of the city’s youngest sportsbook directors when he took over Caesars Palace in the mid-1980s. He held a similar role with the former Las Vegas Hilton – now Westgate Las Vegas – in doing so helping to create the idea of the theater-style superbook.
Protecting the investments – and reputation – of Las Vegas has always been his concern. He was one of the sports book operators who helped uncover the Arizona State basketball point shaving scandal in 1994.
“Sure, I’m worried (expanded sports betting) could affect business in the sports books in Las Vegas. That’s a natural response,” Manteris said. “But I’ve been around so long that I’m guilty of having been worried when riverboat gambling started to proliferate and when native American Indian casinos started opening up. I was very worried about the ramifications to Las Vegas.”
The end of PASPA initially concerned him as well. He said Station Casinos is closely watching how newly legalized sports betting plays out the across the U.S. The company manages an American Indian casino some 45 minutes north of San Francisco, but state lawmakers have so far shown little movement toward legalizing the activity.
Manteris is somewhat amused by all the movement in the U.S. sports betting market. In a way, it reminds him of the rapid expansion of Nevada sports betting after the changes in the federal tax laws. For a time, other states could have opened sports betting operations, but PASPA ended those efforts.
“I’ve been around it so long that I go back to pre-PASPA, not just post-PASPA, like most of my contemporaries,” Manteris said.
And as other states look at adding sports betting to their casinos and racetracks, Manteris expects outsiders will not only check out Palace Station’s remodeled sports book, but the Nevada sports regulatory system – a model that worked long before PASPA.
“I certainly thought I knew what the right business model was then, and I still think that vision and model work today, 25 years later,” Manteris said.
Howard Stutz is the executive editor of CDC Gaming. He can be reached at hstutz@cdcgamingreports.com. Follow @howardstutz on Twitter
